Life Happens
by Qoheleth
Summary: Written for udita. Turtle and Theo had planned not to have children - but, as we all know, if you want to hear God laugh...
1. In Which Turtle Makes a Discovery

**Disclaimer:** Dis claim er bein' Ellen Raskin an' ownin' _De Westin' Game_ sho' is tendentious, Marse Qohelet'. You's better off not makin' it.

**Image disclaimer:** See "Tabernacles".

* * *

T. R. Wexler sat in the executive washroom of the Westing Building, staring in dismay at the small, plastic rod in her hand.

No, that's wrong. There was a woman sitting in the executive washroom of the Westing Building and staring in dismay at the small, plastic rod in her hand, but that woman wasn't T. R. Wexler; indeed, at that moment she wasn't even Turtle. If she was anybody, she was Flora Baumbach's Alice: a scared little girl whose world had been turned upside down, just like when Sandy had "died" on the last day of the Westing Game. Except that, in this case, it wasn't a death that was distressing her; quite the opposite.

She looked down at the rod again, hoping irrationally that it would look different than it had a second ago. No such luck: the same glowing pink symbol stared up at her, seeming almost to mock her as it winked in the darkened room. (If she ever found the idiot who had started the fashion of putting luminous displays on these things, she would hunt him down and force a gallon of phosphorus down his throat.)

She told herself firmly that it was ridiculous for her, of all people, to get so worked up by this. She was the great financial daredevil ("Tornado Rider Wexler", they called her), who could lose two million dollars in a bad stock pick and never bat an eye. What was so dire about this situation as to send her so near to panic?

But she knew perfectly well. With her BQK fly-by-night, all that had been at stake was her own private fortune. Now, it was Theo's trust that was on the line.

But that was ridiculous, she thought. She hadn't betrayed their agreement in any way; in fact, she had adhered religiously to her responsibilities in that department. It wasn't her fault if the drugs had turned out to be useless when taken along with her allergy medicine – and it was pointless to suggest that she could have simply not taken the latter. When she went on business trips to New York, she had to take Abraracourix. She had been raised in small-town Wisconsin; her lungs weren't built for breathing air that was ninety-five parts smog per hundred.

But that wasn't really the point, was it? Of course Theo wouldn't accuse her. That wasn't his style. But would the two of them ever be able to discuss the future again without him thinking (and her knowing that he was thinking), _Of course, I can't count on Turtle to follow through on whatever we decide here_?

She took a deep breath, and forced her nerves into steadiness. If she let her present mood have its head, there was no reason she should ever get up from this toilet seat, and she doubted that the board of directors, who were expecting her in about fifteen minutes to present them with a plan for adapting to Congress's new forest-preservation bill, would appreciate that. It was time for her to take control of herself.

She stood up, brushed off her skirt, and exited the washroom and made her way to the Westing Building's conference hall.

* * *

The conference hall was empty, of course. The meeting wasn't for another half-hour; Turtle just liked to rehearse her presentations on the spot before she gave them. She walked over to the far end of the room, set down her materials at her place at the conference table, and looked about the room for a minute or two, trying to give the economics of ecology the sovereign place in her mind that it ought to have at that moment.

As she did so, she caught sight of the portrait of Sam Westing above the CEO's chair. It had been painted by Michael Shane Neal, and was perhaps her favorite thing in the building; somehow, Neal had managed to give the WPP founder all the proper outward Lutheran rectitude while simultaneously conveying, through the carriage of his body or the sparkle in his eyes, the mischievous spirit of her old friend.

She looked into the figure's eyes, and smiled ruefully. "Well, Sandy," she said aloud, "looks like you're going to get your wish, after all."


	2. In Which Theo Gets the News

Theo Theodorakis stared gloomily at the blank computer screen in front of him, and envied the hack novelists of the world. It must be so nice, he thought, not to have to worry about whether your stream-of-consciousness narration was satisfactorily highlighting the unresolvable tensions within your protagonist's soul – to be simply and solely concerned with getting the beautiful princess out of the Pit of Death before the savage Pentaceratops rent the flesh from her bones.

He sighed, and got up to go pour himself a glass of milk. Maybe if he got a little calcium into his system, that loathsome little twerp Nick Karin would start making sense to him again. (He wasn't sure about the medical basis for that, but at the moment he was more interested in finding an excuse to take a break than in pondering biochemistry.)

He was sipping thoughtfully when the kitchen door opened, and his wife walked into the house. Theo was surprised – he hadn't expected Turtle home for another hour or so – but he gallantly put down his glass and stepped over to help her out of her coat.

"Evening, honey," he said, snaking his neck around and slipping a quick peck on her cheek. "So how was the meeting?"

"Hmm?" Turtle glanced up at him with a vaguely puzzled expression, as though the presentation over which she had been obsessing for the past week had somehow managed to slip her mind during the drive home. "Oh, the meeting. I suppose it went all right – though whether those cloth-heads on the Board will have the sense to do what needs to be done is another question." She sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Honestly, sometimes I just feel like calling up the nearest voodoo temple and having them bring Julian back so he can whip some sense into these turkeys."

"Well, it's only for six more years," said Theo blithely.

Under ordinary circumstances, this reference to her stated ambition to become chairwoman of the WPP board by her fortieth birthday would have provoked a knowing smile from his wife. Now, however, he was startled to see Turtle bite her lip, and her face darken as though he had touched some hidden wound.

His heart skipped a beat. "Turtle, what's wrong?" he said.

Turtle took a deep breath. "Theo, there's something I need to tell you," she said. "On the way to work this morning, I decided to... get something looked at."

"Something?" Theo repeated, his writer's mind filling instantly with visions of inoperable cancers and wasting diseases. "You mean, a medical something?"

Turtle nodded. "I didn't say anything about it when I first noticed," she said, "since it could have just been nothing, and I didn't want to upset you unnecessarily. But, after a week or two had gone by, I thought, well, maybe I ought to make sure that it's nothing. So I did, and..."

"And it turned out to be something." Theo's tone was sepulchral; it seemed to him that he could already see the marks of death on his beloved's face, in the pallor of her skin and the quickness of her breathing.

Turtle nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes, it did."

Theo sighed heavily. "Well, there's no point in beating around the bush," he said. "Let's hear this something's name."

Turtle swallowed, and locked her eyes onto her husband's. "I'm pregnant, Theo," she said.

* * *

This was so unlike what Theo had expected to hear that it took a moment for it to register on his brain. "Pregnant?" he repeated.

Turtle nodded. "Very."

When Theo said nothing, she continued. "I think it must have happened just before I left for New York last month. You remember our little going-away party?" She smiled faintly at the memory. "I'd already started taking the Abraracourix at that point, and I must have forgotten to check the label and see if it contained anything that kept the Pill from doing its job."

She reached up and put a hand on her husband's cheek. "I'm sorry, Theo," she said. "I didn't mean for this to happen, after all we'd discussed and agreed on. I wanted to kick myself when I found out – well, not literally, since I am trying to break that habit, but..."

Slowly, the full reality of the idea dawned on Theo. Pregnant. Turtle was pregnant. A little Theodorakis was growing inside his wife's womb. The thing that he had simultaneously feared and longed for – the thing he had forsworn, not without some reluctance, out of love for Turtle and pity for his hypothetical child – had now happened despite him. And to think, only ten minutes ago his biggest concern in the world had been his hero's motivation.

He became gradually aware that Turtle was still speaking. "I'll have to make an appointment to take care of it, I suppose. I'll call Dr. Miller tomorrow morning and see what he has available..."

"No," said Theo.

Turtle blinked. "What?"

"Don't call Dr. Miller," said Theo. His mind was still awhirl, but he was clear on that point. "I don't want you getting rid of the baby."

Turtle stared at him. "What do you mean, you don't want me getting rid of it?" she said. "You were the one who said that we were the wrong people to be having children. 'Let's leave that to the millions of couples who don't have a cursed gene pool' were your exact words, I believe."

"I know," said Theo, "but what's done is done. We can't go around tearing up the evidence every time we make a mistake; we have to accept the situation as it is, and see if we can't make something better than we expect out of it. That's how the game is played."

It wasn't quite what he had planned to say, but it likely made a deeper effect on his wife than a truer exposition of his feelings would have. T. R. Wexler, as has been noted, had more than a touch of recklessness in her soul, and the notion of their current dilemma as an opportunity for glorious improvisation appealed to something very deep-seated in her. In particular, the Windkloppel in her couldn't help but be moved by Theo's last sentence.

Still, she hesitated. "Are you sure we can, though?" she said. "I mean, even if it does turn out to be healthy, it'll still be a huge investment in terms of time and effort. I can't imagine how we'd be able to pull that off; it would mean rearranging our whole lifestyle."

Theo shrugged. "We'll manage somehow," he said. "We won't be the first people who have had to adjust their lives around a baby." He chuckled. "As my mom always used to say, sometimes life happens."


	3. In Which Experience Is Heard From

When Turtle woke up the next morning, she wasn't sure, at first, why she felt so strangely disoriented. It wasn't anything she could put her finger on, merely a vague sense that not everything was quite the way it had been the previous morning – and, in particular, that she herself was somehow different from what she used to be. She had felt the same way the day after she had won the Westing Game, and again after she had been hired as the WPP legal counsel, but, for a moment, she couldn't remember why she should feel that way now.

Then she caught sight of the Madonna-and-Child icon above the bed (a gift from Theo's parents) and remembered. Of course she felt different: she was a mother now. Not officially, maybe – it would be about seven months, she estimated, before that happened – but she had made the decision to be one, and that was a Rubicon if anything was.

She remembered Baba's reaction when they had told her during dinner. "Oh, _my!_" she had exclaimed, spewing little flakes of potato onto the tablecloth in her excitement. "Isn't that marvelous! I'm so happy for you, T. R.!" (It sometimes seemed to Turtle that, in insisting that everyone except her husband refer to her by her initials, she had overplayed her hand. Whenever those two letters came out of Mrs. Baumbach's mouth, they always sounded as though she was indulging a small child in its wish to be grown-up.)

Well, it was all very well for Baba. When Rosalie had come, she had been running a tiny bridal shop on Cardinal Street. You could do that and raise a Down-syndrome baby at the same time, without even working up a sweat. It was different for someone like her.

Well, there was no point in worrying about that now. She yawned, brushed her hair out of her eyes, and rolled over to poke Theo in the shoulder. "Rise and shine, Mr. Theodorakis," she said. "It's almost seven-thirty. Aetos will be wondering what's keeping us."

* * *

"Aetos" was the Reverend John L. Kiriagis, vicar of St. Basil the Great Greek Orthodox Church. (He had earned his nickname both by sharing a Christian name with the Eagle of Patmos, and by looking – what with his hooked nose, his nearly bald head, and his bright, piercing eyes – rather like an eagle himself.) One of George and Catherine Theodorakis's stipulations, when their son had married the daughter of a non-practicing Jewish podiatrist and a restaurant manager whose religious beliefs varied with her mood, had been that Turtle make a definite commitment to Eastern Orthodoxy. "It's not that we're trying to make up your mind for you, dear," Mrs. Theodorakis had said to her, "but a marriage has to have God on its side if it's going to succeed, and we're not going to let either of our boys go off half-cocked."

Turtle had had no particular objection. Like many children of mixed marriages, she had grown up basically indifferent to religion; if it made her future in-laws happy to know that she was tasting of the immortal fount every Sunday, it was, she felt, no skin off her nose. So she had gotten the necessary instruction, she had received the sacraments of initiation in an appropriately emotional ceremony, and she had attended Liturgy, as they called it, punctually each week for about three months after the wedding, fully expecting to discreetly drop the practice once the elder Theodorakises had left for Florida. Only, when the time came, she found to her surprise that the odd, archaic ritual had grown on her – that she could no longer quite imagine Sunday morning without a Proskomide and a Great Ectenia and all the rest of it.

This had never quite ceased to amaze her. One would think that she – the financial high roller, the heir apparent of Sam Westing, the very image of the modern, independent woman – would have been the last person on Earth to be seduced by the allure of a two-hour ceremony in an ancient language, composed by a long-dead saint and centering around an event that could never be scientifically shown to occur. Yet, somehow, its very archaism had endeared it to her: by being so thorough a contrast to her everyday life, it became that much more effective as a weekly respite from it. Dearly though Turtle loved the hectic, ever-changing game of commerce, it could be quite exhausting sometimes (that was, in fact, one of the signs that you were playing it well), and a couple of hours spent listening to consecrated sages impart the wisdom of the ancients each week was as refreshing a breather as anything.

Whether she actually believed the doctrines that Aetos taught was another question. Some of the practical precepts (such as, obviously, those dealing with fertility regulation) still failed to fill her with holy enthusiasm, but the essential points – that God had been born to a Jewish village girl some two thousand years ago, and that he had somehow provided a way out of the human condition by getting himself executed as a public nuisance – didnt seem nearly as outlandish now as when they had first been put before her. St. Paul, presumably, would have said that it was a case of faith coming by hearing; Turtle herself wasn't ready to call it anything so profound, but she was well aware that three years' worth of hearing Orthodox doctrine expounded by men who clearly believed it had made an impact on her. She had always thought vaguely of religion as a kind of social function, not realizing that anyone seriously believed the things it asserted; the recognition that some of them did had necessitated a quiet rearrangement in her mind. (Nor did it hurt that Aetos had won her respect, the first time he visited her and Theo after the wedding, by beating her soundly at chess. Anyone with that good a King's Gambit, she felt, had earned the right to be taken seriously.)

So now, as she slipped into her and Theo's usual pew and settled herself in for Liturgy, she felt strangely nervous, as though someone was watching her from the sanctuary – which, of course, if Aetos was right, Someone was. She took a deep breath, folded her hands, and forced herself to concentrate on something else – and, since she was staring directly forward, the first thing that came to her eyes was the icon on the Royal Gates.

Like most such icons, this one had images of the four Evangelists as the main part of it, with an Annunciation scene at the top. Under the circumstances, it was perhaps not unnatural that Turtle's eyes were drawn to the latter: to the Archangel standing in the left-hand panel with all the authority of Heaven in his face, and to the Virgin on the right bowing submissively to the will of the Almighty. Turtle's brow furrowed in annoyance at the serenity on the Theotokos's face: why was it so much easier for Mary than for her?

"You're very solemn this morning, Tabitha-Ruth," a gentle voice whispered behind her. Turtle turned around and saw Mrs. Imanidis, an elderly lady with whom she had become quite friendly, sitting in the next pew back.

"Am I?" she said, with a small smile. "I didn't realize it, but I suppose I am. There's..." She paused, unsure how much she wanted to confide in this model of contented mother- and grandmotherhood. "Well, let's just say there's a lot on my mind right now."

"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Imanidis. "Where's your husband, by the way? Not sick, I hope?"

"Oh, he's here," said Turtle. "He's still out parking the car. He insisted on dropping me off at the church door, so I 'didn't have to walk so far'. Apparently, I'm now too fragile to make it from the parking lot to the nave without collapsing."

Mrs. Imanidis chuckled. "I can't imagine why," she said. "You look like quite a healthy young woman to me." (Anyone under fifty was a "young woman" to Eugenia Imanidis.) "But husbands can be quite irrational sometimes, heaven knows."

"Well, it's not really irrational," said Turtle, automatically coming to Theo's defense. "He does have a sort of reason."

"Oh?" said Mrs. Imanidis. "And what might that be?"

Turtle drew up sharply, realizing too late that she had trapped herself. She could hardly refuse now to explain her comment; after all, she had rather invited the question. She took a deep breath, and said the words aloud that had been echoing in her mind all morning. "I'm going to have a baby."

Mrs. Imanidis's eyes widened. "Indeed?"

Turtle nodded. "We just found out yesterday," she said. "And so now Theo's getting all protective about me: helping me out of doors, checking every few minutes to make sure I'm feeling all right, that sort of thing." She rolled her eyes. "I can only imagine what he's going to be like in seven months."

Mrs. Imanidis smiled gently. "That means you have a good one," she said. "There's something wrong with a man who doesn't overreact to his wife's first pregnancy."

"I suppose," said Turtle, wondering how her own father had reacted to the news of Angela's incipient arrival.

"What about you?" said Mrs. Imanidis. "How are you taking it?"

It was the question Turtle had been dreading. What could she say? That she already resented the baby for existing, since it gave her a new set of duties conflicting with the ones she knew and enjoyed?

"Oh, you know," she said vaguely. "All right, I guess. There's some things... but I suppose it'll be all right."

Mrs. Imanidis gazed at her for a long moment. "You're frightened, aren't you?" she said softly.

Turtle was caught off guard. Frightened? She hadn't even thought of it in those terms. She knew that she was upset by her discovery, and that that upsetness was composed of about equal parts worry, apprehension, and anger (well, maybe not anger, but certainly annoyance), but it hadn't occurred to her to wonder whether there might not be fear in it, too.

She considered a moment, and then said honestly, "A little bit, yes."

Mrs. Imanidis nodded. "So was I, the first time," she said. "I think we all are. There's nothing in the world that can prepare you for it, because there's nothing in the world that's quite like it."

"Well, you seem to have managed okay," said Turtle with a smile.

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Imanidis, with a broader one. "And so will you. But it's perfectly all right to be afraid for a little while."

Turtle sighed. "Well, that's good to know."

At this juncture, Deacon Papaioannou, a young, zealous seminarian who hotly disapproved of people chatting before Liturgy, emerged from the vestry, and Turtle decided it would be a good time to straighten back up in her pew and start looking devout. She returned her gaze to the Royal Gates, and found to her surprise that the Virgin Mary's expression in the Annunciation icon no longer seemed as insufferably serene as she had first thought.

She pondered this in silence for a minute or so, until a familiar footfall in the aisle alerted her that Theo had arrived. "Sorry I took so long," he whispered as he slipped into the pew next to her. "Dr. Mobilos cornered me on the way in; he'd found an answer to that thing I wanted to know about the effects of strychnine poisoning."

"That's fine," said Turtle.

"So how are you doing?" said Theo, slipping into his doting routine. "All right?"

Turtle smiled. "I'm doing fine, Theo," she said. "Just fine."


	4. In Which the Word Is Spread

_Ring!_

"Alice, could you get that?" Angela Deere called from the bathroom.

"Sure, Mom," said her daughter, and went over to the coffee table to pick up the phone. "Hello, Deere residence," she said. "Oh, hi, Aunt T. R. – Fine, how are you? – No, she's, um, temporarily indisposed. Can I take a message?"

She listened for a moment, and then her jaw dropped. "You're _what_? – No, I heard you, I just... wow, that's great! When? – Oh, so right around Christmas. Cool! – Yeah, you bet I'll tell her! Bye!"

She hung up the phone and ran to the bathroom. "Hey, Mom, guess what!" she shouted through the door. "I'm going to have a cousin for Christmas!"

"What?"

* * *

Grace Windsor Wexler, _née_ Windkloppel, strode into the study where her husband was going over some police reports and sank dramatically into a chair. "Gracious, what a day I've had!" she exclaimed. "Did you know that the Wisconsin Human Rights Act prevents you from hiring only Chinese people to work at a Chinese restaurant?"

Jake Wexler looked up, and arched an eyebrow. "No. Does it?"

"Well, this one young woman who applied for a job at Hoo's on Eighth seems to think it does," said Grace. "And so now we have to choose between getting mired in one of those impossible civil-rights lawsuits or destroying the ambience of our Eau Claire branch."

"Well, you could always have her wear makeup," said Jake. "Remember Luise Rainer in _The Good Earth_? If she had come up to my table at one of the Hoos and asked for my order, I wouldn't have thought twice about it."

"I dare say," said Grace delicately, "but the young lady in Eau Claire is... rather darker-complected than Luise Rainer."

"So add a wig and hope people think she's Hainanese," said Jake. He paused, and then added, "It is Hainan that's at the bottom, isn't it?" He raised a pencil and started gesturing at an imaginary South China Sea. "Let's see, if Taiwan is here, then..."

"Oh, Jake, _please_," said Grace with a groan. "I've had a very long day, and I'm not up to thinking about geography right now. I don't want to think about anything right now; I just want to lie back and be oblivious for about three hours."

Jake nodded. "Okay," he said. "Then I won't show you the letter."

Grace sat up straight. "Letter?" she said. "What letter?"

"This one," said Jake, tapping a sheet of cream-colored stationary with his finger. "From Turtle. Apparently a rather momentous event is about to take place in her life – or already has taken place, depending on how you look at it – and she thought we ought to know about it. But, of course, if you're too tired to..."

Grace pounced up, snatched the letter from the desk, and spent perhaps seventy-five seconds devouring it with her eyes. Then she sat back in her chair and folded her hands. "_Well!_" she said.

This pretty much said it all, so Jake didn't bother to reply.

"So Turtle's having a baby," said Grace. "Our little stockbroker with the shin-kicking complex is going to be someone's mother. Who would have thought it?"

"Well," said Jake mildly, "it is a fairly common development for married women of her age..."

Grace sighed. "Yes, Jake, I know that," she said. "But, honestly, can _you_ imagine Turtle as your mother?"

In fact, Esther Wexler had been very like her granddaughter in many respects, but Jake knew better than to say this – or, indeed, to even mention Grace's mother-in-law in her presence. "Well, fortunately, it's not my idea of motherhood she has to meet," he said. "It's little Theo Jr.'s, or whatever the baby ends up being called."

"I can't imagine Turtle ever naming a child Theo Jr.," said Grace. "It's much more likely to end up being called Pierpont or something."

"Pierpont Theodorakis," said Jake thoughtfully. "It does have a certain ring to it."

Grace rose abruptly from her chair. "Well," she said, "if we're going to be grandparents again, I think we ought to celebrate properly. We still have some of that zinfandel left over from when we had Justice Bablitch over, don't we?"

Jake blinked. "I thought you wanted to be oblivious for three hours."

Grace grinned. "Trust me, Jake," she said. "Leave me alone with that bottle for a while, and I'll be as oblivious as anyone could ask for."

Jake, knowing his wife, could scarcely dispute that. "Top left-hand cupboard," he said.

* * *

Catherine Theodorakis shifted her grocery bag into the cradle of her left arm and eased the door open with her other hand. "George?" she called.

On receiving no answer, she rolled her eyes. At the golf course, probably. How her husband had developed such a passion for that game was a mystery to her – especially considering how bad he was at it – but, if it kept him occupied, she supposed she couldn't complain. She knew from her own experience how hard it could be to keep from going stir-crazy in this nest of indolence they called a "retirement community".

She reflected, wistfully, that it was a shame they hadn't taken Theo up on his offer to have them move in with him and T. R. That was the way to grow old: among people you knew and cared for, people whose relative youth could add freshness and vigor to your life while your relative age could, hopefully, add serenity and wisdom to theirs. This business of sealing off the generations from each other just made everyone poorer; it was terribly sad.

But T. R. hadn't liked the idea of having both them and Mrs. Baumbach as permanent houseguests – not that she had ever said that, but her feelings were obvious to both the elder Theodorakes. So, recognizing that it wouldn't much enrich anyone's life for them to live in a house thats mistress wished they didn't, they accepted Theo's alternative offer to finance their move to Florida. On the whole, it was probably the right decision – but, still, she sometimes wished... oh, well.

She sighed, put down her groceries on the counter, and pulled the day's mail out from the top of the bag where she had stuck it for safekeeping. A few magazines, another piece of junk mail from the AARP, and... well, now, what was this?

She opened the Westingtown-postmarked envelope and withdrew the letter inside. It was written in Theo's characteristically untidy hand (she remembered, with a wry smile, how they used to joke about what a good job Theo did of copying Chris's handwriting), and it read simply, _Dear Mom: Thought you should know that you're going to be a grandmother in about seven months. Your loving son, Theodore._ (When the topic that he was writing about was one that deeply affected him personally, Theo forgot all about such things as pacing and narrative construction, and just tried to get it over with as quickly as possible.)

Catherine read this through two or three times, and then set it down on the counter and took a deep breath. A catena of thoughts was swirling through her head, but only one made it out of her mouth. "Miriamne Theotokos," she whispered, "take care of the child."

It occurred to her, somewhat later, to wonder whether it was Turtle, Theo, or the baby she had committed to the Virgin's care. In retrospect, she wasn't quite sure.

* * *

"Good morning, Madam Justice," said Ronald Gazaway, J. J. Ford's chief clerk, as his employer entered her office.

"It's morning," said Justice Ford. "I don't know that I'd call it good."

Gazaway raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong, Your Honor?" he said.

Justice Ford sighed. "Souter and I had that breakfast we'd scheduled," she said. "It did not fill me with confidence for the future of the Court."

Gazaway frowned. "You think Justice Souter is a closet liberal?"

"I think he's nothing at all," said Justice Ford. "I think half the questions that he will help settle are questions he's never given a moment's thought to in his life. And, what's more, I think that the President selected him for precisely that reason. After all, if you don't have a judicial philosophy, what ground can the Senate give for rejecting you?"

"Well, there's always gross immorality..." said Gazaway thoughtfully.

"Oh, there's nothing immoral about Souter," said Justice Ford. "He isn't a villain; he's merely a _tabula rasa_." She sighed. "It's an outcome of the Bork affair, I think. October 23, 1987, was a dark day for the United States."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Madam Justice," said Gazaway. "If nothing else, it put you on the Court."

"Exactly," said Justice Ford. "What did I – an average appellate judge on one of the quietest circuits in America – ever do to be appointed to a court containing Marshall, Stevens, and Scalia? Absolutely nothing – except that I happened to have reasonably conservative views and a personal story inspiring enough to make Joseph Biden feel like a churl for opposing me. But that was enough, apparently, and so the precedent was established: distinguished legal scholars are political poison, and obscure judicial nonentities are just what the doctor ordered."

Gazaway, who had rather different memories of the Ford confirmation hearings, considered disputing that "nonentity" bit, but decided against it. He had long since learned that an innate, and largely unconscious, suspicion of having succeeded on something other than merit was one of the key components in his employer's personality, and that no amount of argument, however valid, would remove it. Though he didn't know it, he was witnessing the last triumph of Sam Westing.

"Well," he said, "I suppose the country will survive. Anyway, here's the day's mail."

"Thank you, Ronald," said Justice Ford, taking the handful of envelopes and flipping through it indifferently. Then she paused, and withdrew one of the lighter envelopes from the pile. "Well, now," she said, "what could Turtle be writing me about?"

"Turtle?" Gazaway repeated.

Justice Ford chuckled. "I should say T. R. Wexler," she said. "She's the legal counsel for Westing Paper Products now, so she can't afford to let that childhood nickname get out. But when I knew her in the late '60s, everyone called her Turtle for some reason, and that's how I'll probably always think of her."

Gazaway nodded, comprehending. His own sister Emily, who was currently a neurosurgeon, would always be "Peanut" to her friends and family.

"Anyway, let's see what she wants," said Justice Ford. She picked up a brass letter opener that had once belonged to John Marshall Harlan and slit the envelope open; then she pulled out a sheet of cream-colored paper and scanned it briefly.

Her eyes widened. "Well, I'll be..."

"What is it?" said Gazaway.

Justice Ford turned to him, wearing one of her rare smiles. "Nothing," she said. "Only... perhaps it is a good morning after all."

* * *

Theo was searching for an appropriate adjective to describe his protagonist's girlfriend when the telephone rang. With a sigh, he got up from his chair, went over to the phone, and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Hey, Theo," said a voice. "Doug Hoo. I just got your letter."

"Oh," said Theo. "Right."

"So you're going to have a kid, are you?" said Doug.

Theo exhaled heavily. "Looks that way."

"Well, good for you," said Doug. "Dunno why you let me know, though. You're not expecting me to stand godfather, are you? –Heck, do they even have godfathers in that funky church of yours?"

"Um... yes, we do, and, no, I'm not," said Theo, finding the questions easier to answer in reverse order. "Turtle just thought we should let all the old Westing heirs know; you know how she is about that. Your mom got one, too."

"Yeah, she told me," said Doug. "She's making a _fu_ to send you – that's a Chinese good-luck charm."

"Sounds good," said Theo. "With my family's track record, we'll need all the luck we can get."

There was a moment's silence on the other end before Doug caught on. "Oh, right, your brother's thing," he said. "You think the baby's going to have that?"

Theo sighed. "I don't know," he said. "We're hoping not."

There was a significantly longer silence after this, as Doug searched for some way to respond. "Yeah, well, congratulations anyway," he said at last. "Listen, I've got to go. I'm covering the Loyola Marymount game this evening; my plane leaves in ten minutes."

"Knock 'em dead," said Theo.

"Thanks," said Doug, and hung up. Theo replaced the receiver on the hook and returned to the typewriter; after a few more seconds' thought, he settled on "pneumatic".

* * *

"Mail's here," Shirley Theodorakis called as she entered her and her husband's makeshift laboratory, startling a pair of tinamous that were roosting together on the mosquito netting.

"Already?" said Chris, looking up from a macaw nest in mock surprise. "But it's only been three months since the last delivery."

"I know!" said Shirley. "And to think, people say that the Ecuadorean government is inefficient!" She laughed, and shook her head. "Well, anyway, let's see who's written us this spring." She began to flip through the envelopes. "Your mother, my mother, Dean McConnon, your brother..."

"Theo?" said Chris. "What's he got to say?"

Shirley hesitated – she had a fundamental scruple about not opening other people's mail, even if she and the other person were one flesh – but, since Chris evidently expected her to, she tore the envelope open and extracted the letter inside. "He says..." she began; then her voice trailed off, and her face went as pale as six months' worth of subtropical sun would let it.

Chris frowned, and wheeled himself around to look at her. "Shirley, what is it?" he said.

Wordlessly, Shirley handed him the letter. He took it and read it through, and then, after he had finished, stared down at the paper in silence for several minutes. Then, slowly, he raised his head, and his wife saw the tears gleaming on his cheeks. "Shirley," he whispered. "They didn't... they're going to..."

"I know," said Shirley, kneeling down and embracing her husband as sympathetic tears welled up in her own eyes. "I know, honey; I know."


End file.
